Mere days after Governor Kaine famously unveiled his budget without raising taxes he has already flipflopped. From the Washington Post.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Monday that he wants legislators to consider increasing the state tax on automobile sales to generate more money for highway maintenance and end the controversial fees on bad drivers.

Kaine doesn’t even have the guts to actually propose legislation I guess in a pathetic attempt to somehow maintain his no new taxes budget

Kaine said he will not introduce a bill calling for a tax increase, but he described it as the best approach for closing a projected $290 million shortfall in the part of the transportation budget used for the repair and maintenance of roads and bridges.

The hypocrisy is made even worse because of how much of a big deal was made about not raising taxes. Google kaine budget no new taxes and see for yourself how many articles were written.

In the end a donkey is a donkey and that means your taxes are going to go up.

I am still going with Edwards based on what I said about a month ago. Moving forward nothing will change because Edwards is tied to public financing and Clinton and Obama have enough money and people on the ground to continue to at least Super Tuesday. I think Clinton will edge out Obama for second but I dont think many independents will abandon Obama in NH which is bad news.

Hillary will eventually be the nominee

For the Rs (I am a McCain supporter)

I think Romney will end up winning due to his more disciplined campaign, more resources, and more and better organized boots on the ground. Huckabee won’t be too far behind and will stick around until at least South Carolina.

The latest polls have McCain in third in Iowa and beating Romney in NH but the polls aren’t too reliable. I also think the latest terrorism ad against Romney will create a negative backlash. In the end I think Romney will win in NH and then cruise to the nomination.

Regardless 2008 will be very interesting and I am going to “try” to blog a little bit more often

Lets go back to 2004 Dean and Gephart are the frontrunners they attack each other opening the door for Kerry and to a lesser extent Edwards
2008 Hillary and Obama are the frontrunners they attack each other….

Hillary and Obama both are relying on unreliable voters first time women and younger caucus goers. Factor in the holidays and the potential for bad weather and these groups become even more unreliable

Edwards also has a double advantage of having run before and being tied or ahead amongst prior Caucus goers and older Iowans

The race is basically a tossup amongst the frontrunners. It will come down to what the Richardson (10%) and Biden (5%) and to lesser extent Dodd and Kucinich supporters go to. Their decisions will probably be influenced by the supporters of the other candidates. Another advantage for Edwards because people are the most familiar with him and his caucus goers are the most experienced.

There has already been and will be tons of posts and analysis. Here is my 2 cents.

Looking around I noticed three attributes in the crowd. White, Male, Old. This is a recipe for extinction. We’ve had countless commissions and studies about how to reach out to women, minorities and youth. Its time for action and that starts at the grassroots level. Getting involved in your local community, identifying local leaders, and avoiding the politics of fear and NO and instead focusing on inclusion and solutions oriented policy.

The races on the republican and democratic side are becoming increasingly competitive. So with less than 40 days ago the candidates are aggressively courting voters as fast as they can. Except of course when they are preparing for one of the four to five remaining debates. Debate prep and travel takes away at least 24-48 hours from the campaign for each debate. Thats as much as 25% of the remaining time before the election. The quality of the debates to this point has been a dismal failure. There are too many candidates and the answers are too short. Additionally, the moderators seem to be more interested in their own personal agendas or setting up a combatitive environment instead of actually having the candidates debate the issues. No More Debates